Look, I'm from Florida. This is pure strange Northern magic to me. Water! Freezes! And falls from the sky! Soft and fluffy! Wow!

I first saw snow when I was 16, in the wilderness survival camp. And the wild rumpus began, I tell you what. I squealed and bounced and danced. They gave us "Indian names" (yeah I know that's crazy stupid cultural appropriation stuff, but I was not programming my own torture chamber here) about a month later, and mine had "snow" in it because of that dance.

MedicalAbout the same as yesterday. But yesterday I wore actual clothes for the first time this week, so hey, could be worse. Still weak, still with the hacking cough.

Getting Things DoneWrote a bunch of letters yesterday. Tore through the backlog of magazines - literally, as this involves tearing project pages out of ReadyMade. I've been slowly organizing knitting stuff all week - reorganizing my Ravelry queue, bagging yarns I need for certain projects together, et cetera. Yesterday I cleaned out the three-drawer organizer in my office closet and got my yarns and needles organized in there, so they're not spilling out all over the floor. Did a bunch more office organizing - the stuff I've been threatening to do for a while. There's still a lot to do. But I have been careful about pacing myself.

Writing* I think I'm stalling on PYH because Cicatrix wants out. I kinda did not want to write Cicatrix yet! Wanted PYH first. But we'll see. I guess because PYH is more along the lines of what I want to be writing; Cicatrix is one shot of sheer darkness that is not indicative of my other work, I don't think.* I think the germinating short story "Happy Hour at the Tooth and Claw" wants to be a comic series. *headdesk* I have setting, I have characters, but I have too many threads of story for a single short story.* I am wondering if I can somehow use Kickstarter to back my writing. Thoughts?

ElaynaGets her staples out today. Yay Elayna!

Friday MemeageWearing: Penguin flannel pajamas.Reading: The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen by Delia Sherman.Writing: Have not been. Must rectify.Knitting: My shawl and Elayna's scarf.Planning: Recuperation.

Wearing: sweat pants and a torn white t-shirtReading: The Tsarina's Daughter by Carolly Erickson.Writing: Um...not so much. But I bought a fresh notebook last night in the hopes of inspiration. What do you do when you feel like all your ideas are horribly derivative? Knitting: Tea Towel Topper for kitchen. Backwards but still looks okay. Planning: Possible nap in my future.

I have that same reaction to snow. It's just awesome. I grew up in the Mid Atlantic states, where snow falls in feathery clumps. When I lived in Maine, I was delighted to discover Actual Snowflakes.

I think I was a little scared, or at least wary, of snow as a kid. I don't think I was anywhere near snow until visiting grandparents in Portland in the very early 80s, and it snowed LIGHTLY, and I took so long to bundle up to go outside that it had stopped snowing by the time I got out. Or maybe I was just overly concerned with being comfortable and to my mind snow = OMG COLD AND UNCOMFY. I reacted better to it when Virginia Beach got a couple of light dustings; I appreciated it more then and other times later in Virginia. Since then I've experienced at least two major ice storms, too, back in Portland, which generally doesn't get too much snow but in 2004 and last December, whoa. Lots of ice and snow. But it doesn't scare me or make me wary.

Yay for good experience with snow!

Wearing: my ratty sweats (vintage 1998, 'round the time of the Nagano Olympics -- the Olympic rings are embroidered on them -- and in need of replacing) and the T-shirt I wore yesterday.Reading:Hunter/Victim by Robert Sheckley, with Michael Chabon's Summerland waiting. I'm in read-stuff-I've-had-sitting-around-for-years-and-decide-if-I-want-to-keep-it-or-get-rid-of-it mode.Writing: Not enough, even on LJ. Tiredness and job frustration (though the job frustration has a finite timespan) have gotten in the way. I know, I'm a wimp who doesn't have to deal with this chronically, but I really want to not be tired.Planning: My next job, and (I hope!) time off between the current one and the next one; making a phone call about my apartment that I don't quite want to make, but it has to get done.

My friend mizkit used Fundable to sell a short story and made $1K, so it seems to be plausible for fiction. (Fundable being much like Kickstarter, but with shaky business sense. Catie didn't know at the time, alas.)

Wearing: Pink cloud flannel pajamas.Reading: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest.Writing: documentation for sustainable school construction.Knitting: I don't knit. Current craft project is my husband's family tree, in preparation for future wedding and bar mitzvah planning.Planning: Dr appt, homemade chili, and a day at home.

That was my thought, too. It sounds like you've been doing your own version of Kickstarter, and you don't have to give anybody five percent of your earnings. You always offer something in return for pledges, you already use your own network of contacts, what do you need THEM for? They're set up to make collections through Amazon.com, but you have your own Donate button, so you don't really need Amazon. Only thing Kickstarter would do is establish a deadline, which might be a good thing incentive-wise. But if you don't make the deadline, you get nothing, so I don't know if you'd like that. Suppose your deadline had been one day last week. Ooops. Too much pressure, if you ask me.

Wearing: Star flannel pjsReading: Trumpet, by Jackie Kay and Cook's Illustrated Oct issueWriting: statements of purpose :(Knitting: a felted purse and PoinsettiaPlanning: To get off my ass and get to my psych appointment, then buckle down and get some job applications in. Definitely not going to spend the afternoon spinning until I clear up my "real work" queue.

Wearing: My monkey flannel nightshirt. I have been up for three hours but getting dressed doesn't seem like fun.Reading: An Agatha Christie short story collection that I think I might now own twice. Writing: Edits to a manuscript that must get resubmitted soon. Knitting: I woke up this morning from yet another dream that I knew how to knit and so got out the needles and yarn that I'd bought after a previous dream and taught myself. It ate up my tutoring time like crazy. Planning: To go and get my car with a new rim on it later today and go down to SUNY. If my car isn't done by 1:30, working from home instead.

Wearing: a nice thick warm shirt I haven't worn in months. I also put the fleece liner into my jacket (though I haven't done all the zips & snaps yet, in case the weather does that New England "ha ha fooled you" thing again).Reading: Just finished a re-read of The Hunt for Red October. Next up, Unseen Academicals.Writing: install/deploy stuff.Planning: boardgaming tonight, sleeping in tomorrow. (Still behind on sleep from before ConClave.) Laundry, etc over the weekend.

"...part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time."~~"Case of You", Joni Mitchell

"There is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in." ~~"Anthem", Leonard Cohen

"If you wanna be immortal, you gotta have something to trade in." ~~"Anything", Foetus

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."~~George Bernard Shaw

"The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish."~~Terence McKenna

"When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other."~~Rob Sheffield

"I have a sickness in the brain. I'm allowed to make no sense to you puny mortals with your fully operational head-meat."~~Spider Jerusalem

"Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself."~~Lois McMaster Bujold

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."~~Albert Camus

"Being able to speak the unspeakable is very powerful. If we can hear another person express where they get stuck, or lost, or repeat a negative pattern, it builds a bridge."~~SARK

"Myths and legends die hard in America."~~Hunter S. Thompson

"Don't undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible."~~Edwin Land

"Having faced the fire of your initiation and survived its heat, you can now serve others in a whole new way. By being a living testimony to life transformed, you carry in your cells a sacred knowledge, and in your mind and heart a sacred fire. It's not the fire of youth but the fire of Prometheus, who emerged with the light that would light the world. It's a light that you only could have gotten from having faced some version of your personal hell, and now you are inoculated to the fires which rage around us. Sometimes it is fire that puts out fire, and such is the fire that now burns in you. This is not the fire of your destruction but of your victory. It is the fire of the middle years."~~Marianne Williamson

"Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed…what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness…it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealously among the prime themes of literature."~~Virginia Woolf

"The Universe puts us in places were we can learn. They are never easy places, but they are right. Wherever we are is the right place, at the right time. The pain that sometimes comes is part of the process of constantly being born."

"I will tell you a great secret, Captain, perhaps the greatest secret of all time: The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station, and the nebula outside - that burn inside the stars themselves. We are star-stuff. We are the Universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. And, as we have both learned, sometimes the Universe requires a change of perspective."~~Delenn, Babylon 5

I am kenning all I canShe and I, me and my mind,Writing hard for the one true thingThat lets you let me inBeguiling what must to gain the trust of the minutemenI am worth investing inand I never stop spinning.

Kenning yarns out of my skinWith a leaky borrowed penSwirling stars and stories inWill you let the light leak in?